AS POLICY promises go, this one was as clear and as significant as they come. '
The promise was first made in 2008, so The Age made a point of checking the policy just before last year's election. Coalition education spokesman Martin Dixon, now Education Minister,
. The day after his first cabinet meeting, however, Mr Baillieu said talk of such a pay rise reflected ''a commentary that we made in the past''. His government has now signalled it is likely to break the long-standing promise.
The Age has repeatedly despaired at the failure to recognise the link between raising teaching standards and making up the decades-long decline in teachers' status and pay. You get what you pay for. The state's 45,000 teachers are among the lowest paid in Australia, 8 per cent worse off than the best paid, who work in Western Australia. Mr Baillieu's spokesman says teachers will be subject to the 2.5 per cent limit that has been set for public sector wage rises. Anything more must be offset by productivity gains.
Yesterday, Mr Baillieu said: ''I am very keen to get the best possible outcome for teachers through an EBA [enterprise bargaining agreement] process.'' We hope he is true to his word. Nonetheless, it is hard to see how productivity could make up the rest of the increase teachers were promised, especially as it was also Coalition policy that teacher numbers and class sizes would be maintained.
Setting aside a union ambit claim of a 30 per cent pay rise over three years, the Coalition has no excuse for breaking its word - apart, perhaps, from having thought it would not win office and have to implement the policy.
The government did not inherit a budget deficit or hidden ''black holes''
. It did inherit a lean education system, with the state spending $1100 less per student than the national average.
Victoria will ultimately pay a high price for failing to improve the pay and status of teachers. We undervalue the work that teachers do. Lifting teaching standards and pay go together and is very much in the public interest. Reversing a long decline will take time, but it must be done. If the government were to set out a plan to work towards this goal, a plea for patience might be excusable.
Simply breaking a promise so early in its term is unacceptable.
The Baillieu government should not walk away from a policy that is so central to Victoria's future prosperity